Uprising
by NXSE
Summary: Eyes with the power to see the darkness that resides in the minds of men. Yet what the eyes see the mind rejects, and while on the outside a war is waged over blood, on the inside Naruto fights a war over ideals, idealism, and the very concept of world peace. Mist AU. Rinnegan! Naruto Fem! Haku Good! Sasuke
1. Chapter 1

**A/N:** This work is very AU. The initial arcs are centered around Mist, but it'll go beyond that. Sasuke's one hit kills (all of em), his genjutsu, and the EMS have been nerfed, and the same applies to the rinnegan Naruto possesses. I have written several fics that require severe suspension of disbelief and break the power scale, so for once I decided to focus less on that and more on the story and the relationships. This is the result.

Character backstories will be revealed in the fic, and the same applies to the circumstances in Mist, but keep in mind that they are significantly different from what they were in canon. How is it this way? You'll see. I don't just want to type it out in a A/N. It is less fun that way.

This fic has no Akatsuki, no Obito, no undead Madara, and again, it's not like canon at all. I am borrowing only the characters and the Village system. Time period, hm, it's not really relevant for this fic.

Sasuke won't be bashed. He is a good guy in this fic. In fact, no one will be bashed. I don't like bashing anymore and some of my initial fics make me sad.

Haku is **female**. This fic has no yaoi or yuri. If you have a problem with that, then apologies, but this fic isn't for you. I have no issues with yaoi, but I'll never write it cause I can't do justice to it.

All that being said, let us begin.

* * *

 **Chapter 1**

The sky had squeezed into a rumpled red robe. A brisk breeze blew, ruffling the red mass. The shimmering clouds resembled the spreading sweat-stains that accumulated under the armpits of a loose silken garb on a stuffy day. No one in this barren country remembered what fresh drops of rain dripping down the face felt like. The scent of wet mud, the sight of verdant, vibrant green were threads of memory that'd come loose from the frayed fabric of conscious thought and floated away into the roiling fog of forgotten experience.

As Uchiha Sasuke stepped out of the tavern, feckless faces stared at him from every corner of this paradise of squalor. The luckless land, instead of weakly whelping a healthy yield, birthed a stillborn residue of blackened wheat and ashen rice, sickly flower and tarred, marred fruit.

The first few times he wandered the crisscrossing streets— reminiscent of the crosswords he and his brother, during happier times, took turns completing—he was confronted by child pickpockets, who, under the pretence of begging, extended anaemic arms and pawed at his cloak in an attempt to relieve him of his puffy purse. Then their rheumy eyes, metaphors for malnourishment, met his faintly amused ones; then with howls they skittered away, spitting out in rusty croaks a stream of curses that no child had any business knowing, their boxed, bruised ears slowly blushing the lush red of a blooming rose. Now no one bothered trying anything. The desolate landscape just endured in sullen silence the dispassionate judgement of his eyes and the rhythmic thump thump of his tread.

Gritted murmurs of _Shinobi_ were often the norm when he drifted past clusters of people— his gait and his bearing gave him away. It was no different today, and in the pale flush of the setting sun, he admired the hostility, the venom, no, more amusing, the outright hate, in some of those gazes. Had he been anywhere else, then this could easily have been remedied; it was, after all, hardly a challenge to throw up a henge. But he was in rebel territory, and his bloodline, while problematic, was not a direct death sentence. Besides, he wanted the people to know; he wanted the rumours to take up a life of their own and traverse the land till they reached the eager ears of a certain someone.

He had been here for a week and had made little progress. No matter. He was nothing if not patient. He was in the southernmost state in the land of water, and the heat, the heat that in ironic contrast mocked this country's name, was barely bearable. But he had borne far worse with the slightest of shrugs, so the suffering here was easily endured.

He strode through the streets till night fell, stopping at the odd cigarette selling shack and enquiring in a gravelly tone about a sandy haired dustily dressed thirty-year-old he was tracking, a man by the name of Takawa. But Takawa was not the target; he was merely a ruse, a convenient excuse, a side show with a bounty on his head. In fact, he had already located Takawa. He was a Jonin who had defected from Ame and was no doubt already regretting setting foot in Mist amidst its bloody war over blood. He had seen the man the other day, and the fool stood out, what with his shifty demeanour and his unshaven look and the bloodshot eyes. Sasuke had assessed the man for a minute and deemed him unworthy of his time. So, no, he was of no interest to him; he was small fry, small time, and would fall at the first swish of Sasuke's blade. The bounty—seven million ryo, for he had stolen state secrets and then taken to his feet—was perhaps a better incentive, but not even that—

No, the purpose of stepping out, of asking about so freely and inviting the hostility of all these civilians, was to tip off—

His enquiry done, he started back to the inn he stayed at.

He had learnt early that when one wanted something, it was best to offer the other party an illusion of control, of choice, of being, in fact, in a position to determine freely their fate and dictate terms. Dust ground to dust dignity; the tepid toil undertaken every day to simply survive taught one subtlety. It was important that he—

He sensed them before he saw them. There he was, approaching his inn, the mouldering wreck he lived in, ignoring the pockets of people that under the starry vaults of the sky exchanged with each other in oddly accented monotones a string of warbled mumbo jumbo; then the sounds stopped, and in files the people seemed to make a sluggish scramble towards shops, inns, bins, towards anything that would offer cover. They, the people, were all cross eyed, he noted, as though under a weak gengutsu; and with detachment he took in the haze that had descended on him. Silence replaced sound.

The rebels had twelve territories under their thumbs, to the twenty-two that the loyalists controlled. The central figures of the rebellion, you see, were Mei Terumi and—

"Uzumaki," Sasuke said. He'd made no motion as of yet to defend himself. He tilted his head and turned on his sharingan, and the mist assumed translucence. The shape before him was slender and shapely, and when he turned his head, the shape behind, though male, seemed to signify, through its carriage and its build, middle age.

"But you're not he," he continued calmly. They were, at best, high A rank, and while his estimate could be off, he did not think it was; they quite simply did not project the aura of a Kage level opponent, something that the Bingo book promised him Uzumaki Naruto would.

"No." The voice of feminine, and as the slender form in front of him stepped out of the Mist, he took in the hunter nin mask, the slashed-out Mist headband wrapped around her neck, and the plain white robe. "But my master would like to meet you. You will come with us." It was an order. She was probably sixteen; she spoke with authority and had in her left hand a fistful of senbon; and the term she had used for Uzumaki, when tied in with a quick run through of the rebels' names he had memorized, would make her Haku, Uzumaki's lapdog. High A rank ice user. The other one, then—and this was only a guess—was probably Momochi Zabuza.

Fascinating. So he was worthy of two powerful personal guards, but not of the region's commander in chief himself. Tricky opponents, no doubt, but also complacent ones, for they hadn't noticed his eyes for an instant bleed the blackish red of the eternal mangekyou. The area wide genjutsu had already ensnared them; they had already lost.

He raised an eyebrow.

"And if I refuse?"

The figure behind him was now closing in, and in a rumble, it said to him, "Then we will make you. "

He could obey, and perhaps things would still play out as he wanted them to. Perhaps Uzumaki would even be impressed at his obedience, and then he too could be lapdog, a loyal little lapdog.

But being underestimated to such an extent rankled. Yes, his Bingo Book page ranked him at high B or low A; yes, it said his ability to use the Sharingan was limited; but that was from over six years ago, when he was twelve, when in desperation he had fought a Jonin and lost. Even assuming a linear progression, they should have prepped for a tough opponent.

"I see," Sasuke said. A snide little fuck you smile played on his lips. "I'm afraid—" he brought up his hand in a single seal, "that answer to no one."

The man behind him was going for the meat cleaver and the girl in front had already raised her senbon.

His smile widened into a smirk.

The man dropped first. The mist broke. The girl's mask fell off and hit the pavement with a dull thunk.

She wobbled. She gasped. She threw up.

Then the screams started.

After what felt like an eternity, she fell forward, face first into her own vomit. He noted she had a pretty face.

Or as pretty as a face could be when smeared in sick.

Sasuke gave her a bored look, and then with a whistle he strode forward. First he hefted the girl onto one shoulder, taking care to keep away the puke—she had it in her hair too now. It was a pity he had to go through this charade and couldn't just do away with her. Then he picked up the man, taking in, with a nod of appreciation, his meat cleaver. He'd keep that for himself, he supposed, till the Uzumaki found him. Then he made his way over to the dustbins on the right. There were a couple of men cowering behind them, and as he approached, one shot to his feet and bolted away. The other stayed crouched, his face frozen in a paroxysm of horror.

"My good man," Sasuke said, "please do me a favour. When your ruler makes his way here, please tell him—" he tossed both unconscious Shinobi into trash cans, "that I took out the trash. If he wants to talk, then I'll be right there." He pointed to his inn. "Room 342." He leant forward. "Now repeat that to me, please." And when the man, choking back a squeak, did so, stuttering all the way, Sasuke nodded encouragingly and stepped away.

Then, whistling the tune of an old song that his mother used to sing to him, he picked up the sword, walked into the inn, trudged up the steps, made his way to his musty room, and, without bothering to get changed, sank into bed.

Tomorrow would be fun.

* * *

 **I know this chapter was short and Sasuke centric, but I promise most of the fic will be Naruto centric and that he'll be introduced next chapter. Also, I'll make the next update soon and maybe my chapters will be longer. This was just a teaser.**

 **Thank you for reading this chapter! Please review! I appreciate them so much!**


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N:** A big thank you to everyone who reviewed! Your encouragement keeps me going!

I'd also like to add that Naruto can basically turn the rinnegan off and on here, so his eye colour is blue. And not many people know about his bloodline, because those who see it inevitably die and thus all what most folks know is that he's very, very dangerous. His guards know, some of the rebels know, Yagura knows, but that's around it. Also, to those who asked, no he doesn't have Kurama here. That would well and truly be overkill, and I'm trying to avoid overkill. I got other stories for that.

* * *

 **Chapter 2**

Her porcelain mask was on the table; he had insisted that she take it off, that she not wear it again till it was well cleaned and the sick smeared at the edges was washed away by a professional— emphasizing, of course, the professional with a nod, a wink, and a bright little grin. The insult stung, and what made it worse was that he probably did not know he had insulted them. Or maybe he did. Naruto was weird that way, and while on occasion he could be an open book, on others he could also be hard to read.

Haku grit her teeth and glared at the green tea he had, with a giggle, offered her— _herbal; herbal, my dear_ — and her desire to gut the Uchiha when she next met him intensified.

"Well, drink up, Haku-chan," Naruto said, smiling; then, with a rumbling belly laugh, he wheezed out, "oh, boy, your face—he got you, he got you good. I must meet this man."

They were at a ramen stand three blocks from the inn that the Uchiha was residing in. In the faded gleam of the emerging sun she dully observed the dusty brown surface of the mottled desk they were seated before, paying particular attention to the shimmering reflected image of her master's leonine face, his glistening locks of gold, his good-natured grin. She took her time, tuned out the slurping sounds, tested against the tip of her tongue the thoughts she was about to express; but just as she opened her mouth a beggar boy doing the rounds noticed the apparent opulence of their garb—they wore simple clothes (she, her robe; Zabuza-san his shinobi gear; Naruto the _stupid, stupid_ tracksuit that on several occasions she had suggested he discard—he was, after all, one of the prominent figures of their rebellion, and not a child to clown around so), but in this famished land even cleanliness indicated having two ryo to rub together—and clamoured over, hand extended. She shut her mouth again with an annoyed click.

"Brother," he said softy to Naruto, and Haku noted with some sympathy that he was no older than seven, that his voice had in it a hint of desperation, "brother, I—I'm hungry and…and I haven't…please, I haven't eaten in two days. Brother, I—"

Then the child blinked as he found a purse practically overflowing with coin thrust into his hands.

Haku could feel a headache coming on.

"Here, kid," Naruto said, and Haku was alarmed to read in the downturn of his lips and the tightening of his eyes a spasm of grief. They were Shinobi: tools, trained killers, and now traitors to the state too; for him to be so open with his sentiments was unbecoming. He was, above all else, a leader—their leader— and he, above all else, knew of the sacrifices that had to be made so that he could make good to their motherland his promise of peace. But he still blamed himself. In his wavering tone she heard a throb of guilt over the state of affairs in the regions he ruled, as though all this—the famine, the lack of finances, the stick like physical states of the citizens here—were _his_ fault.

The grin was back again now. The ghosts of the emotions she'd seen had only lingered for only an instant before he, with trained ease, exorcised himself of them.

"Here, kid," he said again, offering the awed child a beatific smile, "you look like you could use this more than me. So take it, eh? And, uh, share it with ya friends too, ok?"

"Woah, thanks, mister," the kid breathed out reverentially before bowing and scampering away. Naruto waved at the retreating figure. "Good lad."

"You're soft, kid," Zabuza growled, looking up from his ramen. This stall was Naruto's idea; he steadfastly refused to have anything else for breakfast. "Soft in the heart, soft in the head, and some day it'll get you killed." Then he went back to eating.

"Oye, old man," Naruto said with a scowl, "it wasn't I who woke up this morning in a dumpster."

"Only because your…uh… nightly proclivities… kept you from attending," Haku said dryly, her lips thinning. "Naruto- _sama_ ," she added as an afterthought.

Naruto coughed and waved his hands around exaggeratedly. The… _thing_ had started two years ago, a few nights after civil war had first broken out, and for the first year it was a nightly affair. He was more reserved now, but there were still moments when he felt the need to have that particular itch scratched.

It was never the same woman twice, never did he take an unwilling woman, but on certain nights he went to brothels or bars, taverns or resorts, and every time, after a few drinks, he would work himself into a state of rowdy inebriation; in these situations, he viewed the whole world through the addled afterglow of alcohol; and, perhaps, the desire to procreate overwhelmed him, and—

But no, it couldn't be that; she knew he always took precautions. What was it, then? Pleasure, perhaps? A coping mechanism? Was this his way of not cracking under the strain of waging a war that was slowly but surely turning against them? She'd seen men go mad. She'd seen men draw their swords and slit their throats. She'd seen kunoichi who, with hysterical giggles, would draw from their blood the bloodlines they were being hunted for, and, in a moment of mania, bring to a bloody halt the tragic play penned by someone else—their life.

Why? She did not know. Either way, Naruto, after he had worked himself into such a state, would let himself go, and there would either be titters of approval and arousal—she was yet to meet a woman who had turned down his exaggerated advances; he was always a clown; he went, always, for the adventurous ones; he would divulge, in a quick whisper, his name, or disclose, in anticipation of lechery, his reputation—or brisk, business-like negotiations between two drunks. This would first lead to an exchange of currency and then of fluids. The sordid deeds he would partake in, the ones that she, with the security of two, screened panels between them had heard him partake in—

After the deed was done, it was her job (or Zabuza's; it was up to him which of his guards he chose to take; initially, he had tried evasion, but their insistence had worn him down till, with a moody jerk of his shoulders, he had given in) to sit guard outside whichever room he rented, wait for dawn to break, and watch him, like clockwork, emerge at five with a glimmer of guilt in his eyes and a dusting of red on his cheeks. _Let's go_ , he would grumble, and she'd follow, and that'd be that. They'd never see the woman again. And next night— even though, thankfully, these nights were now rare—the ritual would begin anew.

She had tried, by the way; she'd tried to see for herself what joys were to be gained by this charade. She was seventeen now (Naruto was twenty), and on her sixteenth birthday she had surrendered herself to the vile nightly visitations of an over eager Jonin six years her senior; for months he had pined over her, and the decision to return his flirtations was easily made, for she too wished to experience the pleasures that on certain nights oft made her master break out into a cascade of sighs and groans.

Haku had been disappointed. Bitterly so. After three months of her lying mute and rigid—a sweaty corpse, practically— as the man above her undertook all the activity— he thrust, panted, grovelled, sighed, screamed, and once, horror of horrors, even wept— she had called off the whole thing, glad to return once more to the physical salubriousness that solitude brought along. Two weeks later, her former lover lost his life on a mission in another part of the country. Naruto had informed her in a hushed tone, pity in his voice; he was aware of her relationship with the Shinobi. She'd felt vaguely unsettled, but there wasn't much else. And now, at this moment, his face was hard to recall without conscious effort.

"Maybe we should go and see Uchiha, huh?" Naruto said awkwardly. Haku gulped down her tea and tossed the vendor a few coins.

"If you're sure," she said curtly. "We are, after all, only your security detail."

He protested, and in vehement exclamations proclaimed that his feelings were hurt, that they were the closest thing he had to family. Haku picked up her mask, and under the guise of a cough concealed the upward curve of her lip.

Now to teach the prick who had caught her and Zabuza flat footed why they weren't to be messed with. She had to admit with a modicum of shame that his trick had worked well: she couldn't even remember what he'd made her see, and at the back of her brain she still felt an irrational fear over what he would do to her this time.

But the same technique wouldn't work twice. It was time to see how fancy he could be when his opponents were prepared.

* * *

They navigated with care the spiralling set of stairs that led to the Uchiha's room. Then they made their way through the murky third floor corridor. Slats were nailed to the wooden windows on the right, and from between the slits shafts of light trickled in. Grimy windows— eyes of the inn; the inn itself had a rib cage composed of mud-crusted steps that'd oft creaked and swayed under the drunken feet of countless doddering drunks. It had a roof riddled with holes too, and every time a breeze blew, these holes turned into dry mouths that with wrenching gasps greedily sucked in the moisture in the air while also exhaling, with a puff, sawdust, and expelling, in hoarse indignation, with rumbling coughs, lumps of mouldering wood. And the brown rooms below were brown walled; and on their sad, sticky surfaces the walls had traces of fungi and mildew. Cockroaches and termites had the temerity to haunt the halls, and every time the floorboards creaked, these creepie crawlies leisurely crept away, and with slow steps scaled the walls or crept through doorways, into closed rooms. _Come, come,_ they seemed to say, _welcome to our humble abode. Please, feel right at home._

 _If there's a place that sums us up_ , Naruto thought wryly, taking in with a wince the whole spartan wreck, _it is this._

342\. Someone had, with a piece of charcoal, clumsily pencilled in the number at the centre of a white door at the end of the corridor.

They knocked. The door swung open. They stepped in. The sole occupant was seated in a meditative pose on the solitary wooden cot that like an eyesore sat at the centre of the room. A ripped bed had been roughly shoved in below the cot. Naruto took in the sight with raised eyebrows, and before he could ask, the Uchiha answered his question.

"Bedbugs," he said brusquely. "Your state is a shit-hole." Then he looked past Naruto, at his two guards, and with a quirk of the lips, said, "Crawled out of those dustbins, I see. I was starting to worry. No need to glare at me, face mask, your sword's right here." He reached under the bed, fished it out, and tossed it to Zabuza.

Uchiha Sasuke, Naruto noted as the sword flew through the air, had grace, a pretty, feminine face, and an accent that was hard to place. He was from Konoha, Naruto knew, or had been, at least; but his deep voice, in a show of savagery, clipped consonants and placed on vowels an undue stress. His hair spoke of hygiene, his eyes of hardship, and his clothes, though utilitarian—violet jacket with his clan's symbol, plain black trousers, a black cloak that was hung on a stand near the window—screamed Shinobi.

Naruto slipped onto his face an easy grin, ignored the seething shinobi behind him—a part of him was enjoying this; after all, he had slipped out of a comfy bed and scampered to this place in an alcohol addled haze, worried sick because his emergency seal had been triggered—and said, "heh, you got no idea. You shoulda' seen their faces. Priceless. I'll treasure their expressions, I tell ya."

Curiosity showed on Sasuke's face.

"You're not angry," he observed.

"Eh, it's all good fun between friends, no?" Naruto said. He pulled up a chair—the only chair in the room; a rickety little thing that with a groan nearly gave in when he seated himself. "They ain't hurt, and we've all had a good laugh." He paused, and in fascination observed a spider weaving its web on the ceiling. "Now, if you'd hurt em— well, if you'd hurt em I'd have killed you. And wouldn't that be a pity, eh?" He brought his gaze back to Sasuke and grinned again. "But they aren't hurt and you aren't dead, so tis all cool. Now, tell me, why'd you want to meet me?"

"I was under the impression," Sasuke said carefully, "that _you_ wanted to meet me. That's what your guards said. Besides, I have a bounty here."

Naruto rubbed his hands together and chuckled.

"So you didn't want to meet me, huh? Ok. Ok. Sure. But you, my friend— you said it yourself; this place is a shithole. So, please," he winked at Sasuke, "let's not insult my intelligence, eh? You went through so much trouble to be seen. To draw attention to yourself. You're distinctive, and you were _everywhere_. Gave a false name, but what the hell, the people here—" he made a chopping motion with his wrist, "people here know a Shinobi when they see one; we've seen a lot; and most bounty hunters, such as you, know this too. You were about as subtle as a tailed beast crashing through a clearing." He leant forward, grin still intact. "And you know what? No one's heard of you, or from you, for six years. Six years! The bingo book says it. Bloody Hell. So you must be very, very good at being subtle. Oh, and Haku here," he pointed to her, "has been watching you for three days now, and if she hadn't convinced me that she could handle you—a mistake on my part… but that's for another time. So, please, my friend, drop the act, stop lying, and let's talk straight, eh? I'm busy, you're busy, and if ya dilly dally a lil more my guards might kill you; no, no, that isn't a threat, it's just that they, uh… hate you, for, uh, reasons that entirely evade me."

Sasuke's face was still impassive, but there was a hint of amusement in his eyes.

"You are talkative," he said. "And very blunt. I imagine diplomacy is wasted on you, too." He stood and stretched. "Very well, then." He sat down again. The amusement drained from his eyes. Naruto found himself recipient to a contemplative stare.

"You will lose the war," Sasuke said simply.

The effects of his statement were instantaneous. Naruto leant back into the chair, grin gone, his eyes suddenly hard. Haku stiffened, then started to move; Zabuza growled, then started to speak, but with a raised hand Naruto indicated that they both hold their tongues. They grudgingly obeyed.

"You will lose," Sasuke reiterated, emboldened by their silence. "In fact, you are already losing. You were wiped out from the west last month, and Terumi had to take to her feet and retreat to her holdings in the south; and even the states, the cities, the territories that you hold on to—mostly in the south and the east— are underfunded and underfed. The citizenry will soon, like a lumbering machine, grind through its gears and grind out from its system the sympathy that it holds for you— it is inevitable; public opinion is a fickle thing. You have no money. You are outnumbered at least ten to one. Your shinobi, while well trained, are no match for the seven swordsmen of the Mist." He made a motion towards Zabuza. "The freak there excluded, of course." Sasuke spoke plainly, and Naruto could tell that he had no talent at oratory. This was just a blunt summarization of the facts that he'd painstakingly memorized.

"You have two known S rank shinobi: yourself and Terumi. And while your abilities are unknown to me, I do know that Terumi is still in the infirmary after her encounter with Kisame Hoshigaki—she might not be quite as lucky next time, and from what I hear she barely landed a blow on him.

"As for the regime, the regime has two jinchuriki, at least two S rank Shinobi, almost unlimited money, alliances with tradesmen that helps them limit your supplies, and non-interference agreements with the Damiyos of other countries. This is an internal matter, and they have the water Damiyo's blessings.

"You—you have the people. Or such was the case when war broke out. They would sympathize with you, hide you, make life hard for the regime through misdirection, sabotage, and silent rebellion. They said to themselves that they'd rather have bloodline wielders in power than a horde of mass murdering barbarians. "

Sasuke paused.

"This, however, is no longer true. Your crushing loss in the West was the last straw. I've been to some of your other territories—not just yours, by the way, to Terumi's too. I've spent the last month and a half doing this. I've heard rumbles of discontent—they've chosen the wrong side; the rebels have nothing to offer; the citizens who stand by the rebels are being overtly rounded up and publicly executed, yet the rebels do nothing. The day isn't far off when the regime languidly ambles through your lands, and your citizens with cries of freedom side with them and help wipe out the remnants of your cause.

"You, Uzumaki Naruto, will soon be seen as a tyrant. Not the regime, not Yagura— You. When the dust settles, they'll all only remember you as the mad man who waged a lost war to the very end; who, instead of letting a few bloodlines perish, sowed in each city the seeds of chaos, subjected each port to the furious shelling of warships; who, instead of unconditional surrender, rent asunder the social fabric of a harmonious land and took from it its rain, its bliss—"

"Stop." His hands were shaking. "Stop," Naruto whispered again. "You've said your piece." He shuffled to his feet and his voice rose in volume. "If this is another stupid pitch from Yagura-sensei suggesting that I surrender now and spare this country further war, or that if I join him he'll grant me clemency, then save it. Tell him to shove this shit up his arse. I made my choice three years ago." He strode to the door. "Come, you two." he could see the concern on their faces, and the satisfied expression on the Uchiha's face made him want to punch the fucker's teeth down his throat. "We're leaving."

"Yagura didn't send me." Sasuke sounded amused. "And don't you at least want to hear my offer?"

Naruto ignored the Uchiha and kept walking. He wrenched open the door and they were almost out now.

"I can win you the war."

He grit his teeth and whirled around. "Don't fucking play games with me, you bastard," Naruto shouted. "I promise, one more word, and—"

"I can win you the war," Sasuke said, slower this time, emphasizing every word. "All it'll take for now is ten minutes of your time. Stay, leave, it's up to you. I don't care." He steepled his fingers and smirked. "But I'll tell you this, step through that door now, and you'll never see me again. And as you lie dying in some shallow ditch at the end of all this, you can take to the grave the knowledge that it was within your power to win the war, to stop your people from being slaughtered like cattle—"the smirk widened, "—but you threw a temper tantrum and ruined it."

Haku was saying something about bounty hunters being scum, about missing nin being worse, about Uchiha Sasuke being the devil incarnate, about how, if only he'd allow her, she'd gladly gut the Uchiha for the insult. But in place of her face, Naruto saw another— bent at an unnatural angle, screened with a curtain of red hair; a sickly face that in its last moments broke free from delirium of a broken neck and through a bubble of blood softly mouthed to him the words, _I'll always love you._

 _Mother. My mother._

He'd promised it'd never happen to anyone else.

He placed on Haku's shoulder a hand, shook his head, and shuffled over to the chair again.

"Let's say I believe you, Uchiha," he spat. "Let's say everything you just promised me is true." His blue eyes were ablaze. "What do you want in return?"

There was a gleam in Sasuke's eyes.

"I'm glad you asked," said he. "I want you to promise me," his visage darkened and his eyes flashed red, "that when I win you the war, you'll help me burn down Konoha."

* * *

 **A/N: A few things:**

 **1)** Sasuke's " **I** can win you the war," isn't to be taken literally. No one in this world is that strong. As I said in chapter one, everyone has been nerfed a fair bit, and your average S rank shinobi is about as strong as 6 A rank Shinobi, give or take 2-4 Shinobi. It's also why Naruto can't just use his rinnegan and blitz the whole world and take over. It's also why Sasuke is asking for help to raze Konoha. I know both could do it in canon, but this isn't canon, tis an AU.

So when Sasuke says "I", what he really means is, "I know a few folks and can get you the intel and the resources to win you this war, and of course, I too can contribute." But it's Sasuke. He'd never say it this way. Hence why it was written that way.

 **2)** The "Yagura-sensei" bit (if you didn't catch it you weren't paying attention) was not a slip up or a misprint. You'll see, I suppose.

 **I live on a staple diet of reviews, so please review! Thanks for reading and see you next time!**


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

 _Do not answer hastily,_ Uchiha Sasuke had said. _Take twenty-four hours. If your answer after this time, however, be adverse, then be advised: I'll be on my way— and you can prostrate yourself before every deity and pray: for freedom, for liberty, for an end to tyranny; but it will do you no good. I am your last chance, Uzumaki; so, consider my offer carefully and then come back to me._

Night had swallowed day. Naruto was seated on a rooftop, and still had nothing to say. The streaky streetlights in the distance were comforting comrades that kept him company in this sleeping city. They seemed to emulate the flashy brilliance of stars in the firmament— though this, he knew, was only an illusion, and every hour or so they blinked into black.

Repairs, repairs. He had no money for new lights, nor for infrastructure, nor, indeed, for filling the roads, or cleaning the drains, or supplying his soldiers with arms to wipe from this country the stain of tyranny. He sat here alone, a testament to bastardry, and even now, as he dithered, even as he let his conscience counsel him—the country could not be dragged into another war post victory, if there were one, and not against a ruthless juggernaut like Konoha—there were people he'd put in the field; people dying, for him, his ideals, the hollow promises he'd made; and it was all so hilarious, all so high on irony. He was a slimy git worse than that Uchiha; a dastardly chef at the helm of this bloody banquet, and he'd fed his forces on the fruit of false hope and thus rend from their lively bodies the gift of life. And all for what? What? The promise he'd made her—his mother? What, then, was stopping him from accepting?

The humanity in him. The steadfast whispers which haunted him, which from his soul arose and said to him this was wrong. He did not have the right to raggedly draw the remains of his ravaged nation— assuming a rebel victory— into a war over revenge, fought to redeem the honour of ghosts that from corpulent corpses had long ago risen and, like foul breath, over time, faded into fog, nothingness. That that haunted man was yet to forget what his clan's ghosts had probably forgiven…no, no, he could not do it; he could not enslave his people to the whims of a mentally unstable benefactor.

But they were tired. They were all tired. They were a tired people. They'd fought too long and only had a heap of corpses that littered every road like fallen snow to show for it. They had ravaged _their_ motherland and murdered _their_ people, and there was no need, no need….

 _I want to go home. I want to wrap a quilt around myself again and feel my mother hold me and stroke my head. She'll stumble up to me in our one room shanty. And though she be shabbily dressed and sluggish and dosed on some local drug to help numb the pain, she'll wrap that shawl again around her bruised neck— the parting present of another man, another man, another—and come to me. Oh, hold me, mother, I am ill. Let me wail. Tell me it'll all be okay, it'll all…_

He had to end the war. He had to end it, somehow, even if it were through his death. He wasn't scared to die. But if he did, then who would hold up the ensign of liberty? Who would deck the mast of this sinking galleon in the gaudy colours of love and tolerance?

Was he to leave Kiri to Yagura-sensei? The man who'd taught him almost everything— everything. Yagura, he knew, to this day, was willing to forgive Naruto his supposed blight of blood and his betrayal; yet, on one matter—the only one that mattered— Yagura's mind was made: he would spare no expense to wipe from the face of earth every bloodline wielder bar him, Naruto; be it new born babe or bloodless crone on the verge of abandoning for a new world its fleshly confine.

What could he do? What the fuck could he do? To die now at Yagura's hands, or later, at Konoha's—what wonderful clusterfuckery masquerading as choice.

The buildings at the periphery of his cross-eyed gaze had, under the strain of contemplation, blurred out of view; now at the sound of footsteps they once more assaulted the edges of his vision, shimmying suddenly into sight through the bat black dour delight of melancholic darkness.

He breathed out a sigh.

"Haku," he said. "Beautiful night, ain't it? Shouldn't ya be in bed, or something?"

She emerged from the shadows behind him and limberly leaped across to seat herself next to him. Her legs dangled off the roof. Then she carefully took off her mask and placed it on her lap. A sliver of moonlight splashed across her bunched-up hair; then, seeing him stare in remorse at the scar running down her bare neck—he knew it ran down her back too— she raised her hand and deftly snapped the brown band holding it in place, allowing her hair to cascade down her shoulders and cover the scar.

"Forgot to wear em bindings around your neck tonight, huh?" he said wanly. "Boy, you musta been in a hurry to get here."

"It was a long time ago," she said, "and it's not your fault anyway."

He gave her a wry grin.

"You'd have died if not for Mei," he said. "And don't try telling me that it ain't on me, because I gave that order; I said we'd try sabotaging the dock. I thought that that raid would turn the tide, that it was high risk high reward; and then when sensei emerged… I froze, failed to come to your aid, and—

"

"And I don't care," she said sedately, turning to him. "If I'd died then, then I'd have died doing my duty—and my duty is to protect my lord." There was an odd fire in her eyes now, an odd conviction in her voice. "It would have been no one's fault. I was willing to die that day to buy you time to retreat both due to duty and out of belief. I believed in you then, and I believe in you now. We all do, and without you we'd be lost anyway _."_

"And that's the problem." The lights in the distance had gone out now, and it brought a smile to his face. Like clockwork. "Yeah, that's the problem," he said again, softly, feeling very weary all at once. "I got my people to look after, and I let em down all the time. What sort of a leader—what sort, seriously, lets his people down as often as I do?" He stood and began to pace. "When we started out we were fighting for the right things: a dream of peace, a world where children like us wouldn't be killed for bearing the curse of a special kinda blood. I—that's what I wanted; that's what we all wanted. But this war, it's dragged on and on, and it's taken everything from us. And now to even have a chance to end our suffering I must offer to it as sacrifice my dream of peace too; I must wage war against Konoha, and we all know how that ends, no?"

"So you're thinking of taking up the Uchiha on his offer?"

"What other choice do we got? He called this a shit hole—and it is. And as its administrator, as the controller of these territories, it's my fault. He was right. We're losing. We're losing badly. You know this too. They closed down our channels for food supply and medical aid, and now this rebellion is very sick and slowly dying."

"And are we to surrender our fates in the hands of this foreigner?" she asked. She sounded calm, but Naruto could spot hints of agitation—the thinned lip, the folded arms, the slight upturn of an eyebrow. "Are we to pliantly sit here and grovel at the feet of this bounty hunter, let him determine what we do? We might die if we refuse him, but at least we die with our self-respect intact: boots on, on our own terms."

"And I thought _I_ was idealistic," Naruto said with a chuckle. He slumped down next to her, and now his voice, which had struck a tempestuous chord at the end of his previous speech, was reduced again to a gravely warmth. "We'll fight," he said shortly, "and we'll fight with our heads held high; but we'll die. Oh, yes, we'll die for sure without his aid." He fell silent for a moment and cast her a sideways glance, then hesitantly began again; "Ya know," he said, "I've been thinking of having you round up the children at our camp—those underage, anyway— and maybe you can take em away. Have em start a new life as refugees at Kumo or Iwa, who for sure would be glad for new bloodlines. But with the dragnet they've cast over us, the problems we got in getting you out that way are…well, let's just say you're all likely to die, which is why I never touched this subject before.

"But if we refuse aid then we got maybe six months before it all ends. And if that happens, then I expect you and Zabuza to try taking em all away, Haku— save as many as ya can and all. You were willing to die to buy me time, and now I ask that if the worst comes to pass, then ya let me do the same. I want ya in that case to take away all the people that can be saved."

She looked torn. Her face degenerated into an avalanche of emotions. She lowered her eyes, then sighed, then clenched her fists, and finally, with a frustrated huff, pulled her hair back into a bun. Then with a resigned shrug of her shoulders, she looked up again, and said:

"If you order me to, then yes, I would. I would do it... unwillingly, and I would be loathe to see you die, but if that brings you peace and helps you decide how we deal with the Uchiha- by the way, I still say we simply slit his throat and dump him into a ditch—then why, yes, I promise. I promise I'll do exactly as you say; I promise I'll take them away and try and help them all start over, though it be as strangers on new shores, treading new sand, away from the violence of their motherland and the guttering candle of a just resistance."

Naruto smiled, his first genuine smile of the night. On a whim, he reached out and hugged her, and ignoring her indignant squawk mussed up her hair.

"Thank you," he whispered. "Thank you so much."

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 **A/N:** **Mostly been ill lately. Sinus problem and some irl inconveniences. Had a health scare that ultimately turned out to be a false alarm. Slowly trying to write again and recapture some sort of flow. Still too tired, too rough and too low on attention span to write longer chapters. Apologies for the inconvenience.**

 **Oh, and as for the 'Good!" Sasuke in the summary, well, Sasuke as a character is very headstrong and his core traits are his love for family and his inclination for anarchy. He's somehow reserved and abrasive at the same time. I try capturing that, to some extent. When I say 'good', it doesn't mean I'm going to make him new or perfect; just that he won't be as directly in opposition to Naruto's goals and ideals as he was in canon, and that he'll even lend him a helping hand (of sorts) here. I don't intend to reconstruct the core nature of the character.**

 **Reviews are much appreciated. Will pray that the mood to write the next update comes soon-ish. Have a great week. Ja Ne ;)**


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